Ha ha ha I am ENFP. Apparently a great creative thinker but with a 'silly switch to become captain wildchild'. I've always said I'm a better ideas person than academic writer so I suppose it's sort of true :D

Hi. Yes funnily enough your subject is a shortage subject but it is not funded as such anymore! It really depends if you want to teach? I've spent most of my 20 year career in teaching and whilst the gov are trying to de-regulate you will find very very few schools that will appoint without a teaching cert. Basically, they stick with what they know and they trust the teaching cert as the route into teaching. I have QTLS and donkeys years experience but still couldn't get a job teaching pre 16 as the job specs mostly all say you must have experience of teaching the national curriculumn for that age range, so whilst theoretically you can get a job without having been an NQT in reality it's rare it happens.

In social sciences and humanities it is not uncommon to publish papers from your Masters thesis. I suggest this as a nore doable route than new research as MA dissertations have been graded and received feedback and you already know the work.

You dont mention your subject so it is hard to give specific advice but there are ways around this. Don't apply to pgce in your subject area if you have other/secondary quals that would entitle you to train in shortage subjects e.g. if you have A level maths you can do teach first maths pgce! Once you qualify you can then teach in both subject areas. Second,work as a teaching assistant and approach the school to put you through the training. Finally, apply to school advertised training (these are usually advertised on the schools own website and are usually academy/free schools). Get some volunteer experience first to check its def for you. Or teach post 16. Work based learning providers are less strict about employing with teaching certs, in fact most work based learning provider staff are not qualified teachers.

I've done lots of reading, lots and lots and lots of reading, changed my mind and direction a few times to make sure my gap in the literature was a sound one nad then methods I want to use address the problem Re-wrote a proposal, did some piloting. I've not wrote anything like literature review or methodology chapter or started to get results! I've not even been through ethics yet. If you are on course with the timescale you gave in your proposal then I think you are ok.

Well done on making the contact to secure a place. Only you really know if it is good for you. PhD will never be 9-5 though! Even if you do manage to keep 'normal' office hours it is constantly in your head, you are constantly seeing things to read, emailing, networking etc. It's like having a split personality lol, your 'real life' you and the 'PhD you'.

It's easier than working and studying. My PhD is my first time not doing work and distance learning. It's a much easier pace! Plus I have young children, husband, etc. Maybe I'm more pragmatic because of age and family and them being my priority? I'm financially better off studying on a studentship that working and paying childcare and I'm starting to build a social life after the void of children so all's good......for now!

Well done Juniper. Sounds like a good experience. yes you are right, there are also very good supervisors so that's good to point out :D

Yes I totally agree with meanings post. It is probably no surprise HOD is on your side as they can point a finger at someone now external to the dept instead of addressing why your complaints through the proper Chanel were not overcome I.e new supervisory team or additional supervisor, proper records of contact between supervisor and student. If you took your case further I guarantee it would become about the system. Have they given you a new supervisory team for the revisions

Did you raise or go down any formal route of complaint to your institution about lack of supervision over the years of your PhD? If not that makes a legal case even more slim as you are expected to have exhausted all other avenues of complaint usually before bringing a legal case. I'd also imagine the case you would make would be a breach of contract and if you had funding I'd suspect the legal argument would then be with the contract maker which in fact is your institution. I see it is a messy situation and you were let down badly. I do think there needs to me more done to protect PhD students. But, this is a distraction to you doing you revisions and moving on. In the words of Disney 'let it go' and good luck.

I'm a learning addict ;-) plus it's more flexible and easier with the kids than when I was working and I'm better of financially as a student than when I worked full time and paid childcare!

Yeah well done you. Tsk tsk tsk internal examiner!!! When you look back in a few months when everything done and dusted you can have a proper celebration. :D

It's very difficult to judge human reactions but my thoughts are, if the supervisors know each other you might crop up in their conversation. As uni A supervised uni B, telling them that B accepted you might show A you are a credible candidate (like a recommendation).

The uni I turned down were very understanding. I just told them my circumstances had changed and whilst I thought I could progress with an unfunded place, funding was now a requirement to my completing a PhD. The supervisor just wished me the best of luck. But that's my story and other supervisors might take it differently.

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. I applied to one uni (very good dept but lesser ranked overall) it had no funding, I accepted. Then another uni better ranked overall but the dept wasn't as good as the other offered funding. It became clear that I needed funding so withdrew from the other uni and accepted the funded place. Academia is pretty incestuous, depts across universities often have links and I expect the issue of accepting unfunded places which are then turned down for scholarship elsewhere is pretty common considering how they do the applications so ad hoc. I wouldn't worry yourself too much about it. Hope the amended proposal goes well :D

First stop being so hard on yourself, treat yourself kindly, you've done the work, it's all there in your head, you have a PhD thesis in there (and on various notes etc). All you have to do is empty it all into your Thesis.

I find not having a blank page helps so Ii usually open up something I've written before on the subject or something similar and start to type over it to expand my thoughts. Write anything (obv not anything I mean just get your thoughts that are Thesis related down onto paper). Head each section with titles that relate to the structure of the Thesis and add notes as you go, it doesn't have to be ordered or systematic. Then refine, refine refine. Write the bits that are easiest for you first, leave the trickiest until last. Your introduction and abstract until the very last then appendix and contents. Roughly 3000 words a week (428 a day) will get you 80k by Oct and that is starting from scratch with nothing written. Does 428 words a day sound doable? I think so. Go do it you know you can deep down xxx